Alfred Petersen (theologian)

Alfred Petersen in 1973

Alfred Otto Petersen (born November 13, 1909 in Altona ; † May 11, 2004 in Schleswig ) was a German Protestant theologian .

Life

Petersen studied theology in Bethel , Tübingen , Berlin and Kiel . He passed his first theological exam in 1932 and began his vicariate in Husum . After the Second Theological Examination in 1934, Petersen was ordained on May 13, 1934 by Regional Bishop Adalbert Paulsen in Blankenese . He then became vicar in Hamburg-Rahlstedt . In October of the same year Petersen became pastor in Viöl and on December 6, 1934 he married Erika Röhl (born January 29, 1913 in Tönning; † October 17, 2004 in Schleswig), the daughter of the Husum provost, whom he had met during the vicariate . Petersen was a member of the Confessing Church since 1934 . In 1939 Petersen became pastor in Husum; In 1940 he was drafted and served in the Soviet Union and France , where he was taken prisoner, from which he returned in 1946.

Bishop Alfred Petersen with Provost Hans Egon Petersen and Pastor Hans Hollstein in Leck 1973

In 1951 Petersen became pastor of the Inner Mission and representative for the Evangelical Aid Organization in Rendsburg . Between 1951 and 1957 Petersen was, among other things, a co-founder of the Theodor Schäfer Vocational Training Center in Husum and a member of the regional committee of the Evangelical Lutheran Diakonissenanstalt in Flensburg . In 1957 Petersen became provost of the Husum-Bredstedt provost in Husum. From 1961 to 1977 Petersen was a member of the church leadership of the United Evangelical Lutheran Church of Germany VELKD. Of 14 November 1967 to 31 December 1978 was Petersen bishop for the diocese Schleswig.

From 1969 to 1980 Petersen was chairman of the state association for internal mission in Schleswig-Holstein . From 1970 to 1979 he was a member of the EKD Council . Petersen is considered to be the main architect of today's North Elbian Evangelical Lutheran Church , whose first chairman of the church leadership he became on January 1, 1977. In the same year he was awarded theological faculty of the Christian Albrechts University of Kiel , the honorary doctorate . In 1978 Petersen received the Great Cross of Merit of the Federal Republic of Germany .

Fonts

• Against the “politics of needle pricks” , in: Wolfgang Prehn u. a. (Ed.): Time to walk the narrow path. Witnesses report from the church fight in Schleswig-Holstein , Luth. Verlagsgesellschaft, Kiel 1985, pp. 35-40.
• Who sits under the umbrella of the Most High. Sermons and contributions from six decades . Wachholtz, Neumünster 1999 (Writings of the Association for Schleswig-Holstein Church History Series I, Volume 40).

literature

• Hans Peter Petersen: Bishop Alfred Otto Petersen (1909-2004) , in: Karl Ludwig Kohlwage , Manfred Kamper, Jens-Hinrich Pörksen (eds.): “What is right before God”. Church struggle and theological foundation for the new beginning of the church in Schleswig-Holstein after 1945. Documentation of a conference in Breklum 2015 . Compiled and edited by Rudolf Hinz and Simeon Schildt in collaboration with Peter Godzik , Johannes Jürgensen and Kurt Triebel, Husum: Matthiesen Verlag 2015, pp. 194–201.

Web links

• Literature by and about Alfred Petersen in the catalog of the German National Library
• Obituary (PDF page 7) (PDF)

Individual evidence

1. ↑ Obituary (PDF page 7) (PDF), accessed on January 3, 2016

predecessor	Office	successor
Heinrich Reinhard Wester	Bishop of the Schleswig district of the Evangelical Lutheran Church of Schleswig-Holstein 1967–1976	-
-	Bishop of the Schleswig district of the North Elbe Evangelical Lutheran Church 1977–1979	Karlheinz Stoll